Matrix: The Hindutva Reload

An aspiring writer enters into an academy where gods are made

The world’s oldest religion is the world’s newest fad. Hindu statues drink milk, gods finally appear to those who do intense yagya and grant wishes, an ancient stone bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka proves the stories of Ramayana, vimanas or ancient flying chariots are recreated from newfound ancient schematics, cow piss is proven to have multifarious health benefits, yantras or robots, as mentioned in the Hindu scriptures, once more serve humans, the existence of the soul is proven, and people can recount some of their past lives. These are just some of the many happenings that wow the world. Hindu religion is not only proven true, but also the only religion all whose stories and teachings are proven true.

And the world converts. From all corners of the world, people express their desire to be Hindu. Hindu priests are ordained on a war footing. However, all is not hunky dory. Demons also come to plague the world. Those who didn’t convert earlier also do now. Having the Hindu gods on their side is the only way to protect themselves. Some of the people start discovering that they have magical abilities. Gods and demons are among the people.

I am as unconcerned about the world as I was yesterday, going about my business, or profession, or hobby, or heck, I don’t know what you call it: I am trying to be a writer. I read a lot. I write some. I am not blind, but the world, to me, is still a rumor. I go to the bank to withdraw the last of my savings.

The man sitting at the counter doesn’t look at me. I say that I need to withdraw money. He picks up his cup of tea. Pours the tea in the plate and starts slurping noisily. I wait for a space, then ask for my money again. He starts slurping on the plate even noisier. While I wait, I get lost in thoughts as I am wont to do. I am thinking that I will have to take up a job soon. Dreams, delicious as they are, don’t sustain the body in the short-term. My musings are rudely intruded upon as the bank guards come spinning in the air to rest at my feet. There’s something gooey that issues forth and comes to rest at my feet. I cringe and draw back my feet as a pool of thick, dark blood spreads. Four demons come bursting in. They have big claws, muscular frames, and are issuing fire from their mouths.

The people start panicking and running. Somehow the man at the counter in front of me is still stuck to his plate of tea. The demons issue fire and turn him to cinders, his lips still stuck to the charred plate. Then, with their fists, they sweep away the counter as if it was made of cardboard and stride inside. As an afterthought, one of them turns toward me and throws fire at my head. Then turns to go inside. He takes a step forward. Something in the periphery of his vision doesn’t seem quite right. He turns to look at me. I am still standing there, unharmed. He gives a little shake to his head and then looks at me. Still there. His companions pause to see what’s happening. He opens his mouth wide and throws a wall of fire at me. Nothing happens. I am still there. The other three come forward while he stays at his spot shaking his head even more vigorously. The rest exhale fire at me in unison. Still there. Nothing happens. They too start shaking their head vigorously.
Then when they have been at it a while, they stop and rush at me, gnashing their teeth. I raise my hand; a ray of fire shoots out. The first demon is no more there. Only ashes remain where he stood. The rest pause in acute consternation and start shaking their heads vigorously again. Before they stop, they too disappear, leaving ashes in their wake.


I am lying in my bed, still replaying the whole thing and its aftermath in my head. Mobile cameras click, people shout excitedly, horns honk in acknowledgement. I walk in a daze on the sidewalk until I reach my one-bedroom rented flat. I finally get up to get a cup of coffee. I stretch my hand as the coffee machine is about to pour. My hand stays frozen as all electrical appliances stop working suddenly. There’s a flash of light. Narada appears playing his veena, a stringed musical instrument.

“What the heart yearns for, the heart will get
Your destiny my child is now grandly set,” he sings strumming his veena.

“I yearn for coffee,” I reply matter-of-factly.”

This makes him knit his brows in consternation. The light around him starts to dim, threatening to plunge my flat in darkness.

“I will take destiny instead,” I hurriedly say.

“Be at the King’s Cross at nine

It’s finally your time to shine.”

“Could you shine again like you were doing when you appeared? It’s eerily dark, and those words seem to come from nothingness.”

There’s a flash of light. As my worried face relaxes, he disappears. Now there is total darkness.

“Nobody listens,” I say to myself.

I jump as the coffee machine starts pouring. Electricity has come back.


At King’s Cross, at 8:50 AM, I wait for a train that’s not scheduled, to go to a place I don’t know about. People at other platforms look at me like I have lost my marbles. I shuffle my feet and try my best not to meet their eyes.

At nine, as I stare at the tracks, willing a train to emerge, suddenly I see a chariot in front of my eyes. The slowing down of the hummingbird-like wings of the metallic horses tells me that it appeared from the sky. The charioteer, a middle-aged man wearing a saffron shawl covering his shoulders and part of his chest, pauses chewing, looks at me, and says, “You going to the academy?”

“What academy?” I say taking care not to look at his atrocious dressing style.

He looks at me with distaste, spits on the tracks, and presses the middle of his forehead. An image of yours truly appears in the air. “He looks at me with impatience and asks, “Did Narad not tell you where you were going?”

“He did. I am going to meet my destiny, which is rather grand.”

That doesn’t please him. I fear that he is going to spit on me. “That Narad, always forgetting something. The likes of us are supposed to pick up after his lordliness,” he says irritably, “Get in,” he shouts at me.

“Where am I going?”

“To the Sanatan Academy. Now are you getting in or not?”

“Where people dress like you. Not.”

He suspiciously looks at his dress, shakes his head vigorously, pulls himself upright, well, half upright, then says, “This is how gods dress.”
And that’s the magic word. I get in. I could get behind the idea of becoming a god.”

Ignoring the people silently looking at him disapprovingly, he spits on the tracks again and hits the horses with his riding crop. The wings start to flap tremendously, lifting the chariot in the air. I hurriedly put on the seat belts, which make an X, ensconcing me in my seat. As gusts of wind buffet me, forcing me to put on the goggles hanging from the roof, to my consternation, the charioteer keeps chewing and spitting over places unknown.

“Could you stop doing that?” I shout at him.

He points to the headphones hanging to the side. I put them on. He puts on a pair of headphones as well.

“Could you not spit?” I say.

He takes out his headphones, turns a dial on the riding crop, and hits the horses. They gain tremendous speed. I feel like my eardrums are going to burst, but they don’t. Within no time, an immense cloud appears in front. The chariot goes right inside and lands amid a circle of palaces.

The charioteer doesn’t say anything. Just sits there. I get down and walk to him to ask what I am supposed to do. He looks at me and spits on the ground. He takes off without a word.

I don’t know what to do, where to go, all the palaces look the same. A trio of men wearing similar saffron clothes come flying and land in front. I relax. Finally, some direction. They ignore me and examine the spit. One of them puts his finger into the red glob of spit and puts the finger in his mouth.

“He took off seconds ago,” he says.

“He couldn’t have gone far,” another says.

They take to the air, flying vigorously. I don’t know what to do again. I start walking in the frontal direction.

A man bearing a plate with a flame alight in an earthen vessel approaches. I open my mouth to speak. He gestures me to wait. He revolves the plate bearing the flame thrice around my head. Then puts a vertical red mark on my forehead.

“Welcome,” he says.

Thank you. I follow him as he begins walking from the direction he came in.

“There’s a spit detector on the grounds, put in to discourage the charioteer from or punish the charioteer for spitting, but he always seems to fly away before he can be caught.”

“Why not just fire him?”

The man looks at me aghast. “He is a minor god. You can’t fire gods.”

“That sounds like the bureaucracy of communist nations,” I say.

The man again looks aghast. “Don’t you know all the isms are gone?”

“What happened to them?”

“What you don’t follow what’s happening around the world?”

“I am a writer,” I say by way of explanation.

He doesn’t know what to make of it. “They all got replaced by Hindutva,” he finally says.

What’s that? Oh, something to do with Hindu religion, I guess.”

He looks at me suspiciously, “Why are you here?”

“I want to become a god,” I say at once.

“Then how do you not know about the spread of Hindutva in the world?”

“I knew some mythological religion had come alive. But there’s so many, you know.”

This doesn’t please him at all. “If I were you, I would be very careful,” he says to me with eyes narrowed like a snake’s.

I visibly take a step back in fear. Then finally muster courage enough to ask, “Where are we?”

“At the Sanatan Academy?”

I blanch. “Has it got something to do with Satan?”

“Who’s that?”

“God’s nemesis. The king of demons.”

He actually emits smoke from his ears. “This is your final warning. Don’t blaspheme. This is an academy for gods not demons. Sanatan is the basic principle of Hinduism.”

I sigh in relief but also sinks in the grave need to be careful. Something tells me not to make an enemy of the man, most probably a god, in front of me.

We stop in front of one of the palaces.

The man leads me to one of the intricately carved rooms. I notice something strange. There are no windowpanes. The windows are open squares of nothingness.

“This is your temporary room,” he says.

“The windows have no shutters. And there’s no door.”

He just looks at me quizzically.

“Ever heard of privacy?” I say carefully keeping the edge out of my voice.

“Western decadence. That’s not a Sanatan concept,” he says matter-of-factly.

“These are your clothes,” he says pointing to saffron shawls and dhotis.

“Ew!” I exclaim.

“Careful. And get rid of the watch. There are plenty of sundials around,” he barks.

I flinch as if bitten.

As he turns to go, I summon up courage and ask, “Why temporarily?”

“Say what?” he snaps in irritation.

“You said this is my temporary room.”

“Oh yes, you will be shifted to your house’s dormitory once you are sorted,” he says irritably. “Conch shell blasts will inform you of lunch timings.” Then he mutters to himself, “I am going to be late.”

With that, he disappears. Not metaphorically. Actually.


I sleep awhile. The blowing of a conch shell breaks my sleep. I hurriedly get into a saffron shawl and a dhoti. It takes more than a few tries. Then I realize I don’t know where to go. I hesitatingly get out of the room and come face to face with what looks like a peculiar robot. All its gears and shafts are clearly visible. Some of them turn as he speaks, “Student 147, you are late for lunch.”

“I don’t know where to go,” I raise my hands in surrender.

“Follow yantra. Yantra will take you there.”

“Who’s that?”

“Attempts at humor are frowned upon at the academy, you will do well to remember,” the machine says and starts walking, its gears turning slowly.

It finally dawns on me that I am supposed to follow him.

The mess is eerily quiet. Students, all wearing dressed similarly as me, are chomping noiselessly. I take an empty seat. A man glides toward me and places a banana leaf in front of me. He puts a serving of rice, lentils, and vegetables on it and turns to go.

“How about a spoon and a fork?” I ask.

“Western decadence. I will not report you as this is your first time here,” he says primly.

I open my mouth to speak. He points to a sign that says, “No talking during meals.”

I start eating with my hands like all around ppl are doing. I examine the mess. There’s a writing on the wall that catches my attention: The future is the past is the future. I turn to the student sitting beside me to ask what it means. He puts his finger on his lips and points to the sign that says, “No talking during meals.”

I drop my head in resignation and surrender to the silence.


After I have had dinner, I am lying down on my bed when the yantra from before enters my room.

“Lying in bed at all times is looked askance at in the academy, you will do well to remember,” he says without preamble.

“Well, do you see a whole lot that I could do here?” I ask making no movement to get up.

“Questioning Sanatan societal norms is something the academy disapproves of. You will do well to remember.”

“Is that what you came to tell me, robot?” I ask from my comfortable perch in the bed.

“I am a yantra, an authentic ancient Sanatan creation, quite different from a Western robot. Tomorrow, you will be divided into houses.”
“Finally. Where?”

“In the grounds where the charioteer dropped you.”

As the yantra turns to go, I say to him, “Sweet dreams.”

He sharply turns. “As a mechanical being, I neither sleep nor dream. You will do well to remember that.”

I put my head under my pillow and start loudly singing a song.

“Singing Western songs is strictly prohibited at the academy. You will do well to remember that.”

I start singing even louder. The yantra sees my head hidden by the pillow. Not finding a receptive audience, it doesn’t know what to do. It stays there for a space, then quietly shuffles off.


The next day I am standing in a line. The god who had shown me to my room places his shawl or angavastram on the students one by one. The angavastram turns into a snake, which bites the student, apparently biting into the very soul of the students. The god, who is the proctor of the academy, touches the middle of his forehead after each student has been bitten. A picture of a scale emerges from it, saying Creator X%, Preserver Y%, Destroyer Z%. The attribute that’s the largest is said to be the defining feature of the atman or the soul and accordingly, the student is slotted into either Brahma, Vishnu, or Shiva houses named after the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva who are the creator, preserver, and destroyer, respectively, of the universe.

I finally reach the god. He looks at me and remembers something. “Didn’t you destroy the four demons who were looting a bank?”

“Is that a good thing?” I ask carefully before replying.

“You will not question the elders here. Moreover, you should do your duty without thinking of the result.”

It is a phrase that I am to hear a lot of times during my stay here.

“Yes, it was me.”

“Well, you are slotted into the Shiva house.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. Having a snake bite into my soul: not my idea of fun.

I take my self to the Shiva house. A huge statue of Shiva at the front, beds, tables, chairs, and racks, all arranged in a huge common space. I take my space in an empty bed. My housemates come in. A group of them approaches me.

“Move you bed to a corner. All the beds in the middle are taken.”

You have to know something about me. Bullies, I have always hated them. Usually, I keep that disgust to myself. But today I find myself saying, “Nah. My feet are pretty comfortable where they are.”

They see red. Shit gets serious too fast. Their eyes take on different hues. Spears, arrows, boulders, snakes, and other generic objects of harm rush toward me. As I am thinking that probably, I should have yielded, a wall of fire forms in front of me, and all these sundry objects and creatures bounce off of it and fall down harmless. (The snakes start slithering about and give quite a fright to quite a few. I think I even hear a scream of being bitten.) My attackers look at each other and huff and puff. As their eyes start to change color again, I show my open palm to them. Flame engulfs it and yearns to issue in their direction. They attack again, which bounces off. Fire issues out of my hands toward them. They draw back scared. It singes them slightly and returns to my hands.

I get up from the bed. “I could do with a little semblance of privacy, such as this place offers.” I move to a bed near the window.

They look at each other in relief. “Yeah, keep moving and don’t come back, or we won’t be as lenient with you.”

Next day, classes begin. One saffron-clad professor after another comes to teach subjects such as history, geography, philosophy, rituals, powers, weapons, and flight.


Two months later, I am lying in the Himalayas. Life has taken a steady pattern. I go to classes. The history class teaches about the creation of the world, the roles the various gods played in it and their powers, how ancient India was the epitome of civilization and advancements, and how the world at large owes all its inventions to Indian thought processes.

The geography class teaches about the seven heavens above the earth and the seven hells below the earth. It also tells about the various islands where supernatural beings such as yakshas, gandharvas, nagas, and rakshashas live.

Philosophy tells about the true nature of the atman or the soul: it’s merging with the brahman, the ultimate truth, the dissolution of the individual, and the attainment of moksha or the liberation from the cycle of life and death. All spiritual growth is geared toward attaining this.

In the rituals class, we are taught how to use ghee and other ingredients to perform various yajnas and the different mantras or incantations to invoke various gods.

In the powers class, we are told various mantras and practices to hone our powers.

In the weapons class, we are told how to invoke various gods to acquire different types of weapons or astras. Basically, it’s an extension of the rituals class.

In the class on flight, we were taught how to fly, a very important attribute toward becoming a god. Now that we have all learnt to fly, there’s no more need for this class.

In essence, I know what all the classes are going to be talking about and focus on my original pursuit: writing. I am writing a story about outer space. Declan wars with Dhoprah. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance. I am writing a space dogfight between the spaceships of the two planets. Explosions occur all around, and the air is pervaded by cries. I put down my writing to see demons of various shapes and sizes exploding all around. But there’s a whole army of them. I light the yagyakunda or the pit for rituals with a thought and disappear inside it as the demons rush toward me.

I emerge in its companion ritual pit in the academy. I climb the alarm tower and blow the gigantic conch shell kept there. The whole academy is instantly mobilized. As the demons break through the outer spells and enchantments, we are ready to take them on. Arrows and powers collide. My classmates throw walls of water, typhoons, coils of snakes, spears, arrows, maces, etc., at them. They reply in kind. The battle goes on for hours. Slowly, the demons are gaining ground. I burn three in quick succession and throw a shield of fire as four more rush at me. I turn them to cinders while they are still on the ground. But demons are coming from every side now, and our lines are getting overwhelmed.

A demon jumps at me bringing his giant sword down, I catch him in a noose of fire and throw his crying ass afar. Blood drops down on my cheeks, and I start tottering as a mace strikes my head. I throw down a pillar of fire to steady myself when the demon strikes me again with his mace. My hold on the pillar falters, and it disappears. I fall down to the ground and groggily see the mace descending. The mace lands away from my head and glances harmlessly off the ground. The demon becomes unsteady. In fact, all the demons become unsteady. There is the sound of a damru, a handheld miniature drum. There is the sound of somebody dancing. The demons all start losing their balance and falling to the ground. I get up and groggily see a lionskin-clad figure dancing in the distance. The vista slowly clears, and I see that it’s Lord Shiva, the god after whom my house is named. The proctor has invoked the ultimate destroyer. The demons start shouting in pain and disintegrating. Their anguished cries fill the air, and then they are no more.

Shiva is gone. I, too, am about to go when the proctor approaches me. “There’s another attack that we need to prevent.”

“Whereabouts?” I am mildly irritated, seeing as how I was planning to continue writing.

“There’s an academy a ways from here. I need you to go save it.”

“I and who else?”

“Just you. I don’t trust the others to be able to maintain their detachment.”

“And how am I supposed to do that by my lonesome?”

He hands me an arrow. “It’s a Brahmastra, capable of felling entire armies.”

The chariot appears. The charioteer is about to spit when he sees me twirling the Brahmastra meaningfully and swallows back the spit. I get in the passenger seat and put on the goggles. When I appear above Sanatan Academy – Stree Vibhag (Women’s division), I see demons wrecking hell. The students are being pushed back as the demons destroying entire palaces and uprooting trees advance. I see a woman flying and shooting bolts of lightning at the demons. She is highly effective, decimating ranks of demons until a tree thrown by a demon comes swinging and throws her away. I fly down from the chariot and catch her. She is unconscious, but as soon as she gains consciousness, she puts on her pallu or headdress on seeing herself in the arms of a saffron-wearing male.

I put her down at the vanguard of the defending students. Together, with flame and lightning, we kill the demons at the front. Then, when there is a lot of space between the demons and the students, I summon my new toy. The Brahmaastra arrow materializes in my one hand and a bow in the other.

“What’s that?” she asks shyly.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I say and shoot the arrow. It creates a bubble of destruction that uproots entire palaces and decimates every last one of the demons. The absolute silence after the ruckus created by the demons is strange and intimidating.

“Thank you for saving our lives,” she says softly.

“But I saved your life first.”

“Thank you for saving my life,” she says with a hint of a smile in her voice. Suddenly, it feels like there’s hope for Declan after all.

“Perhaps, the guest would like to share a meal with us,” she says from under her drooping dupatta or head covering.

“How boring!”

“Perhaps, soma (an intoxicating drink of the gods) then?”

“With us?”

“With me?”

“Acceptable.”

“Acceptable?”

“I will be delighted to join you in partaking soma but far from here,” I say, meaningfully looking at the professors staring at us with hawk-like eyes.”

She tells the professors that I need to investigate the route taken by the demons and that I need a local guide. Pained as the professors are at leaving us alone, I am a male god-in-training who just used the Brahmastra and saved them all. I have the authority of my proctor. There’s nothing they can do but agree.

I tell the charioteer to fly back to the academy. He is about to spit.

“I have more,” I say.

He stops mid-spit. “What?”

“Brahmastras,” I say meaningfully.

He gulps the spit, surreptitiously turns the chariot, and is out of there like a bat out of hell.

The lightning wielder and I proceed to my perch on the Himalayas.

We discuss classes, teachings, who we were before Hindutva came alive, and surprisingly, all its stifling mores. Wonder of wonders, I have not only come across a fierce female but one who is also a kindred spirit. I light a fire as she feels cold. I don’t. I never do. In fact, I feel relief in the Himalayas from the raging heat inside me.

I notice she is not wearing her dupatta anymore. I take her head in my hands. She leans forward receptively. We kiss and there under the heavens, no, let me correct, there under my academy, we make love. We stay there for two days.

My proctor asks me in a state of agitation on my return, “Where were you?”

“Caught behind enemy lines,” I say calmly.

“For two days? With a female student?” his voice and temper rising.

“Should I have told them to grant me passage as a female was with me?” I ask rhetorically and brush past him.


I frequently meet the lightning-wielder for amorous trysts in the Himalayas. One day, she asks me if I know the brother of a friend of hers. He studies in the academy. She tells me his name. He is one of the guys who had attacked me on my first day in the Shiva house.

I have a suspicion. Somebody told the demons about the route to take to enter both divisions of the Sanatan Academy. This guy knew about both. Add to that the absolute ass that he is. He is the guy.

I tell about my suspicions to the proctor. The proctor confronts him in my presence. When he comes to know that I accused him, he becomes livid.

“He spent time with a student from the female division, and did things without clothes with her,” he says.


The proctor looks at me, seething. “He is lying,” I calmly say. “Ask him how he knows that?”

“How do you know that?” the proctor’s eyes narrow.

The guy goes absolutely numb in his chair. The proctor raises his hand. A rope appears out of thin air and binds the hands and legs of the student. The proctor places his agavastram or shawl on his body. It turns into a snake. The snake bites into him, biting into his very soul. The proctor touches the middle of his forehead. An image appears of the student using Divya Drishti or clairvoyance. He looks at me in rage.

“So, he wasn’t lying?”

“Seriously? That’s your takeaway. Don’t you want to know how he got Divya Drishti?” I ask in exasperation. The proctor will not make it as a character in my novel, I think.

The proctor’s eyes get narrower. The snake bites again. The proctor again touches his forehead. A vision of the student getting Divya Drishti from a demon appears in what looks like an academy for demons. The snake bites again. The proctor again touches his forehead, and the location of the academy appears in sharp relief.

The next hour sees the students and the instructors launching a major attack on the demons’ academy. We decimate demons by the scores. They mount fierce resistance, but the store of divine weapons or astras is far greater on our side. Step by step, they are pushed back until all of a sudden, we find the academy empty of demons. They are nowhere, as if the very ground swallowed them up. We search in vain until we find a huge doorway that stands in the middle of the compound. It’s just a doorway in the middle, not leading to or from anything. Just a doorway without a door.

We, the proctor and I, stand in the doorway to examine it. There is a thrum of energy. The next thing we know, we are in naraka or hell. Souls are being tormented all around in a million different ways. Their cries of pain seem to hollow out our very essence, while the demons that lustily surround us seem to gain stature and wherewithal from the anguished cries.

There are a lot of them. And we are just two. The proctor tries to summon astras, but they don’t appear. His invocation doesn’t reach the gods from here. The demons rush en masse toward us, shouting a raucous cry. This is the end. Declan will lose after all.

There’s a thrumming of energy, and the lightning wielder appears in the air above us, shooting an arrow that floods hell with light. She has shot the suryastra, a weapon obtained after pleasing the sun god. It dispels the stifling darkness in and around hell. The connection with the gods is reestablished, just for a couple of seconds. All manner of astras and a couple of bows appear in the proctor’s hands. He hands a bow to me and some astras. The demons of hell get hell from us. However, the power of the astras is very muted, and we need to shoot plenty of astras plenty fast if we want to vanquish the demons.

I hear the proctor’s pained shout as a demon that can emerge through walls and floors comes from a lower level of hell and rifts apart the proctor’s lower body with his massive, clawed hands such that his entrails hang out. The lightning wielder and I blast him with fire and lightning. But he keeps getting up. The proctor proffers me an arrow. I shoot it at once. The demon turns to stone. We blast with fire and lightning, and the stone demon shatters into pieces.

I take the astras from the proctor, divide them among the lightning wielder and me, and shoot till there aren’t many arrows left. As it happens, by that time, there are also no more demons left. Even as I pick up the body of the proctor, I feel his essence or tejas ebbing away. He says something weakly. I bring my ear close to his lips.

“All of this is fake. For all you have done for us, I will show you my true form,” he says and breathes his last. I move forward with a heavy heart, wondering what he meant when I see a strange thing. His body starts changing: the eyes become opaque, his body and limbs lengthen, thin out, and become green, and his hair disappears. Our hearts nearly jump out of our chests in shock as we realize that he is an alien.
A thought appears in my mind. If the gods are aliens, what about the demons? I sift through the few arrows left and pick one that I had considered useless at the time. It’s the mayabhedh astra or the illusion breaker, an arrow that the gods never ever grant to lesser gods, much less to the ones in training. With my heart thumping in my mouth, I shoot the illusion breaker. There are no souls crying anymore. We are in a high-rise building, very much on earth. And the demons: they are spider-like alien beings with numerous legs.


We bury the secret in our hearts. We only speak to each other about it. It brings us closer and cements our bond. We keep up appearances at our academies, but we know it’s all a long con. We don’t know all the answers yet and maybe never will. Asking questions to the wrong person will mean a swift end to our lives, as they are. I devote most of my time now to finishing my novel. I also read: more fantasy, more science fiction, more mythology. Becoming a god isn’t all that it was cracked up to be.

I finally finish my novel and excitedly take it to my professors, especially the literature professor. He asks what it’s about. I tell him that it’s about a war between Declan and Dhoprah, where the fate of the universe hangs in balance.

“If it’s not about Sanatan Dharma, it’s not literature. He throws my book in the trash can. Next time, I will throw you out of the academy,” he says smoothly and buries his nose in a purana, a story book about a god who becomes so large that he fills up the whole universe.

I keep thinking about all this. Why would aliens be so fanatical about the Hindu religion? They wouldn’t make any allowances. They stick to what’s in the scriptures. Why do that when they know it’s all a lie? Unless they are something like programs that, once the task is given, can’t operate outside the characteristics of it. Now, I want to test this theory. I invoke the god of the sky.

Indra appears, wearing a white dress and a crown of jewels. “What is that you want?” he booms like the thunder he is said to control.
“I asked for the god of sky and the controller of thunder. Who are you?”

“I am Indra, child. I am the god of sky and the controller of thunder.”

“But so are Zeus and Jupiter.”

Indra blinks his eyes rapidly, transforms into the Greek God Zeus, complete with a beard and a moustache, and wearing a white toga. Zeus blinks his eyes rapidly and transforms into the Roman God Jupiter, complete with a lightning bolt in his hand. Something weird happens, the being starts blinking his eyes rapidly and goes beyond, transforming into the Norse God Thor, bearing the hammer Mjolnir in his hand, and more. He keeps shifting from one to another, unable to stop.

I cover the Himalayas in ritualistic fire pits or yagyakunds. I invoke the god of the underworld and death next. Yama appears on his buffalo. I pose the same question to him to find him glitching into the Greek God Hades, the Roman God Pluto, and beyond.

I next invoke the goddess of wisdom, knowledge, and the arts. Goddess Saraswati transforms into the Greek Goddess Athena, the Roman Goddess Minerva, and more.

I move to the next ritualistic pit and invoke the god of prosperity and good fortune. The Hindu God Ganesha appears and, on questioning, transforms into the Greek God Dionysus, the Roman God Bacchus, and more.

The Hindu god of creation, Brahma, appears only to glitch into the Greek God Uranus, the Roman God Janus, and the Norse God Buri.
Shiva, the god of transformation, destruction, and ecstasy, transforms into the Greek God Dionysus, the Roman God Bacchus, the Greek God Apollo, and more.

Vishnu, the preserver and protector, transforms into the Greek God Apollo, the Roman God Jupiter, the Roman God Mercury, and beyond.
Agni, the fire god, glitches between the Greek god Prometheus, the Roman God Vulcan, and more.

Varuna, the water god, switches between the Greek God Poseidon, the Roman God Neptune, and more.

Durga, the goddess of war and protection, jumps from the Greek Goddess Athena, the Roman Goddess Minerva, and the Norse Goddess Freyja.

Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, beauty, and love, can’t decide between the Greek Goddess Aphrodite, the Roman Goddess Venus, and others.
Kartikeya, the warrior god, keeps manifesting the Greek God Ares, the Roman God Mars, and others.

Narada, the messenger god, changes into the Greek God Hermes, the Roman God Mercury, and others, all associated with messaging, communication, and swiftness.

And suddenly, I find myself surrounded by a large host of gods and demons.

“Why this whole charade?” I raise my hands in the air calmly and ask.

“We are advanced races of aliens, who are part AI and part creature, from enemy planets XO1 and XO24 from the Autlusi Galaxy. For centuries, we fought for the control of our galaxy as the two most formidable species there. We reached a stalemate and got tired of all the gore and destruction. So, we decided to settle our differences in a simulation on another planet, something like the sports matches you play among hitherto enemy nations,” my erstwhile literature professor replies.

“So, we are in a program, but we die in it for real?”

“Yes, we are. We wanted the grandeur of war, where the losses were preferably not ours but of the indigenous population.”

“You mean creatures back home are watching the whole events unfolding?”

“We were still hostile and had plenty of secrets from each other, all within the framework of the Hindu religion. So, on our planets, the creatures can only see the actions of the home teams and some of the instances where we cross paths.”

“How very fascinating. But why the Hindu religion?”

“We found a whole subcontinent still following the tenets of a religion more than 36 centuries old, where the main teachings were obedience and subjugation to god, priest, and government. We were safest here. We never thought anybody would start questioning when all of it started happening for real, when nobody questioned when all of it was fake. So, why did you start questioning and almost burn down the whole program?”

“I listened to your stories for so long, but you didn’t listen to mine. As for the ‘almost’ part. Here goes nothing.”

The last Brahmastra of the dead proctor and a bow appear in my hands, and I shoot. The arrow engulfs all beings who had surrounded me, gods and demons alike, the beings of XO1 and XO24 alike, in a web of destruction and annihilates them.

I wake up in my one-room flat near King’s Cross. The world is back to normal. There are no gods or demons or ancient wonders defining the thread of our futures. I have a fully finished novel in my mind, which I need to write, and an ex-lightning wielder to find.